Too Like the Lightning
by Ada Palmer · first published 2016
69% recommend28% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Idea-dense speculative novel set in the 2400s, with inventive worldbuilding about self-chosen governance hives and Enlightenment-style philosophy; suits readers who want wordy, social and political SF over tech.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech... And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destabilize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life..."--Book jacket.
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…Constant Struggle, Angela Davis * Rising Strong, Brené Brown * Cleopatra, Stacy Shiff * The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander Fiction: * Anything by Ursula Le Guin * Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie * Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer * Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine ... so many more
on “Summer Reading List” ↗Ada Palmer / Too Like the Lightning is fantastic. The ideas are breathtaking, the characters are fascinating, and as the plot and the world is revealed, you can’t help but be in awe of the author’s storytelling.
on “Ask HN: Recent sci-fi recommendations” ↗The quoted Dr. Palmer’s novels caricature a far future SV ethos well. Start with Too Like the Lightning and believe the narrator when he tells you he’s a bad dude.
on “Why Is Silicon Valley So Obsessed with the Virtue of Suffering?” ↗If you want a sci-fi description of something like this, consider Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. Enjoyed her take on “hives” which form as groups of people choose how to govern themselves and are relatively free to join. Some choose autocracy, others full democracy.
on “Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State” ↗Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series was such a delight too, starting with Too Like the Lightning. Beautiful threads of high Rennaisance drama in a interesting speculative future earth. And I keep find myself recommending Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire. Amabassador from the independent sparse…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?” ↗"Too Like the Lightning" by Ada Palmer. (First of four books called the "Terra Ignota" series.) It's one of the handful of books that genuinely changed my mind about serious questions -- in my case, relating to gender, politics,…
on “Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read” ↗…Garden. I also loved being transported to the space-Byzantines in Arkady Martines's A Memory Called Empire; a reverberation of the past set far in the future. The interwoven Hives & world of Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning / Terra Ignota are an incredible backdrop for such a story of many powers of the intersecting and overlapping and coming against each other. Or the rollicking fun and action, the oppressive decadent…
on “Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the 21st Century (So Far)” ↗…they are treated like children, but taken care of. There is actually a fantastic sci-fi novel I highly recommend written by a professor of enlightenment philosophy that uses the as part of the premise. too like the lightning by Ada palmer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Palmer
on “Burrito Now, Pay Later” ↗…(there's a lot of old stuff covered already in other comments): Stories of Your Life and Others; Exhalation (Ted Chiang) - both are short story collections vs novels, though Dissolution (Nicholas Binge) Too Like the Lightning (Ada Palmer) and sequels (wordy, philosophical, interesting future society) Tell Me an Ending (Jo Harkin) - more near-future and grounded Void Star (Zachary Mason)
on “What 'Project Hail Mary' teaches us about the PlanetScale vs. Neon debate” ↗…reading War and Peace will need at the very least a list of characters Indeed, I almost gave up on it for that reason. Great story but does the character really need 6+ different ways to refer to them. "Too Like the Lightning" and its sequels are also great but Ada Palmer suffers from same of the same desires to refer to characters in far too many different ways to keep up with. That said, I also scored poorly on the face…
on “A Guide Dog for the Face-Blind” ↗I can't recommend the author's novels highly enough. Terra Ignota, the first book being Too Like the Lightning.
on “Teaching Machiavelli through his letters” ↗The Terra Ignota series (Too Like the Lightning / Seven Surrenders, and Will to Battle which came out last year). Not only is it very different in tone/style from most traditional SF I've read, it also doesn't restrict itself to just tech/physical…
on “Ask HN: Best scifi of 2017? (Vernor Vinge/Larry Niven style)” ↗Absolutely loved this book, though I thought the best parts of it were the influx of ideas and worldbuilding in the first 3/4ths of Too Like the Lightning. The last quarter seemed to rush to tie together the threads laid down and I felt that carried over into Seven Surrenders. Of course I think my approach to reading it also changed as I was eagerly awaiting…
on “Ask HN: Best scifi of 2017? (Vernor Vinge/Larry Niven style)” ↗Constellation Games, The Martian, Too Like the Lightning, Moving Mars, Nexus, Blue Remembered Earth,and The Caryatids are some hopeful SF that's come out recently that I recommend.
on “The Expanse UI Design” ↗You ever read 'Too Like the Lightning'? Its really good. One of the things going on through the series is basically "what if a bunch of atheists found compelling yet questionable evidence of a miracle".
on “On “A Canticle for Leibowitz”” ↗